


Hunger

by LysSerris



Series: Hiatus [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Bellamione Cult Ilvermorny Cup, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Creature Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Creature Fic, Creature Hermione Granger, Dark Hermione Granger, Discord: Bellamione Cult, Exhibitionism, F/F, Horror, I don't know what this is but it exists now, No Beta, Other, Wendigo, no edit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-07-30 11:36:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LysSerris/pseuds/LysSerris
Summary: Their party was being hunted.It wasn’t a bear, it wasn’t a pack of wolves, nor a cougar or a bobcat.Something was hunting them.





	1. Starvation

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is, there are lots of comma's  
this was a one shot now it's not, i'm too lazy to remove it from the series.

Their party was being hunted. 

It wasn’t a bear, it wasn’t a pack of wolves, nor a cougar or a bobcat. But  _ something _ was hunting them.

They’d started out the week before with five party members; Neville, stalwart and brave, and Luna, a lovely girl who, while being a bit airheaded, had a knack for finding animals that didn’t want to be found. The last two of their party were less than helpful but necessary regardless.

Hadrian “Harry” Potter, financier of the expedition and all around great guy, even if he couldn’t tell a shrew from a hamster. And Ronald Weasely. The boy, she wouldn’t dare honor him with the title of ‘Man’, had insisted upon his inclusion in the vain hope that doing so would somehow land him closer with her. Hermione had been having none of it. As soon as Harry had given the okay for his inclusion, boyhood chums were special after all, she’d dressed him down so thoroughly that his ears had turned as scarlet as the scar that forked across his forehead. But there was nothing to be done for it. Dumbledore had already approved the list.

Last but not least had been Hermione. Senior Researcher and cause of the whole bloody mess. 

Ever since she’d been in school she’d heard tales of lost animals and undiscovered species hiding out in the forest that shrouded the outskirts of Hogsmeade. Hogwarts had been a wonderful place to accrue knowledge, probably the best University left on the continent, but it had been sorely lacking when it came to the woods known only as “The Forbidden Forest”.

The land was known to be thus; Large, stretching out from the whitecaps at Godric’s Hollow until the very foot of the Mould'on Mountains. A vast expanse nearly two thousand kilometers that remained as unexplored as the deepest portions of the oceans. Beyond that? It housed numerous  _ known _ species, numerous tribes of people who’d entered to never exit, and one large and unsightly volcano known by most as Voldemort, sleeping after its last eruption sometime in Nineteen Eighty One. The remainder of the forest wasn’t mapped out, no one knew what treasures or hidden peoples dwelt within its depths.

But Hermione  _ wanted _ to know.

She wanted answers so deeply that she’d searched up everything she could on all prior expeditions, interviewed everyone who’d ever stepped foot past the twenty kilometer mark and returned to tell the tale. Not that there were many in that list, but it was more than she’d hoped for at the beginning. That their words often spoke of things in the night and haunting howls of beasts not known to Man, well, that all just served to intrigue her. There was a mystery, a nearly continent spanning mystery, right at her doorstep. And no one seemed interested in finding out. 

So she’d nominated herself for that position.

The last expedition to enter had been known as the Black Expedition. Characterized by a mass inclusion of what some would term prisoners, but their government would coin as “Volunteers”, it had been the only mass incursion into the wild land. Thirty four people, an eclectic group of men and women from the eccentric prison known as Azkaban, had been guided into the forest under the guidance of one Tom Riddle, Senior Researcher at Hogwarts, half-brother to Gellert Grindelwald, pupil of Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Brian Dumbledore. By all accounts it should have been a successful expedition.

Only one man returned. And not in any condition to speak on the matter.

His tongue had been ripped out. Fingers cut off at the knuckle. Ears missing, eyes gouged. He’d only returned at all due to the diligence of a donkey known as Barty, who’d carried the wounded man from wherever he’d been harmed and straight back to the Hogwarts Equine & Livestock Campus. A lucky break, if one could call living like that “luck”.

The madness behind it only served to fuel Hermione’s passion to know. Whatever happened had to have been the result of people, of that she was sure. No animal could wield a knife, no wolf could carefully rip out and then cauterize someone’s tongue. Gory? Yes. Intriguing? Hermione would also have to say yes.

And so she’d spent her years at Hogwarts preparing before carefully nudging her best friend into sponsoring the trip. And now here they were. 

One hundred kilometers past the twenty kilometer record.

In the midst of a sudden whiteout.

While being hunted.

\---

Ronald had been the first to notice something amiss, a shift in the wind or something else that had alerted him to an unknown danger. He’d informed her, as he was supposed to, in her tent late the night he’d figured it out, as he was  _ not _ supposed to. There were tracks surrounding their little campsite, nestled beneath the high evergreen Pine Trees that seemed to characterize this stretch of the Forest. He’d gotten a few glimpses of something tall and black on the edges of their campsite, nearer the strung up storage containers they’d been using for food than the actual camping spot itself. But it was enough to spook him.

She was mostly spooked by him having the bloody nerve to enter her chosen chambers unannounced and uninvited. So she’d brushed it off. He’d seen a tree while he was walking, it was a trick of the light. A branch fell, or maybe a bear was really out there but had decided to wander away. She should have paid more attention to his look. He wasn’t in her tent because he wanted another shot at  _ them, _ he was there because he’d been afraid.

\---

The next day their food had been discovered all around the outskirts of their camp, torn open and stripped from their packaging. The mules refused to enter the north half of the woods, straining at their bits to walk west or south, anything but north. Neville and Hermione both chalked it up to a bear, citing Ronald’s apparent sighting the day before as one that had been too hungry to leave the tempting food. But they knew they could hunt on their trip and enough remained inside Luna’s tent to give them a few more days of travel. If word from prior expeditions was correct, there would be a village or settlement only one hundred kilometers ahead, they could rest and restock when they reached it.

The weather continued to worsen as they pushed further into the unknown territory, a blizzard deciding to sit directly on top of them. Snowfall accumulated on their backs as they rode the mules onward until it became hard to sit without feeling like they were being crushed. The conditions eventually became bad enough that they’d needed to lash everyone together from their waist to the bit of the rider behind them, hoping that as a chain they’d avoid straggling off the path. Seventeen hours passed like that, heads pointed down at a compass while fingers and toes froze in the unseasonably cold weather.

That night found them all huddled inside one tent, five sleeping bags damn near on top of one another with burly Neville at the center, while outside the stretched canvas the wind howled and tore through the woods until it sounded like it was alive. Hermione had thrown on two layers when she packed it in that night, hoping to remain warm in the fireless space. But even with all that she'd ended up shivering with cold spikes racing down her spine. The hair on her neck and arms stood to attention, her ears seemed to tingle every time a rush of wind spun about the camp. It was unsettling how much nature could sound like some tormented soul, out here where no one resided. Her last thoughts before drifting to sleep had been to wonder why the wind sounded so much like a crying woman.

\---

Morning brought the first true ray of disaster. 

A dead mule, it’s belly ripped open and entrails splayed about, cold crystals of frozen blood spread all around it like a macabre painting. They swore again that it must have been a bear, an animal slowly starving in the cold, tempted and unwilling to look for a meal elsewhere. 

They cut the mule up, content with using its corpse to feed their forward momentum, not noticing at the time that not a bit of it was eaten. It was just… ripped.

They’d remounted, Luna now riding with Hermione, and set out at as fast a pace as they could muster while being tied to one another again. When they stopped for the night Ronald swore again that he could see something on the edge of their camp, something big and tall, not broad nor bulky. Antlers, he swore, antlers as big as a full-grown Elk, on something that leaned against the tree in dark black fur, no eyes visible. When asked to provide its location he took them to the edge of camp and pointed towards the ground, here, there, all around them. 

Hermione, Harry, and Neville too, all should have heeded his words. But in their stubbornness and inattentiveness, they could not see that which had Ronald so spooked. Snow moved quickly in the winter, even more so in this inhospitable Forest. There was nothing there.

All lies to convince themselves that they were still alright. 

One mule down, half out on rations, but  _ they _ were all alright. 

Sleep came to the huddled mass, again forgoing individual tents in favor of one large group (certainly not out of fear, no, certainly it was only for warmth). The wind howled and screamed as loud as it could that night, Hermione hearing pinpricks of something dangerous and different in its tone. Something feminine and lost, saddened and hurt. She couldn’t decide if her ears were playing tricks on her or if she was attributing her own suffering feelings to the uncaring nature outside their tent.

She fell asleep shivering, mind a mess, thinking oddly of black crows and a missing picture.

\---

Dawn brought carnage. Ronald had, at some point that none of them could tell, left the tent. Whether he needed to use the loo, or something else, none could be sure. But he had left in the middle of the night without waking them, only to end up a gory smear three trees down from another dead mule. She’d never liked him, not really even when they’d been chums in school, but she’d never once wanted him dead. Never wanted him to be hurt like this.

They packed as quietly as they could, concerned now that he had been right, thoughts of academic achievement pushed aside in favor of life. Luna rode with Neville, Harry with Hermione, each setting out as fast as they could towards the still fifty kilometers distant settlement. If it even was a settlement.

At some point in their fervent escape the rope snapped, or maybe was dropped, but one moment Hermione felt a taut bundle of hemp in her hand suddenly turn slack. 

“Neville!” She shouted, voice barely carrying over the din of the blizzard, “Luna!”

It was for naught. They could neither find their now missing friends, nor figure out where they were. The compass was gone. When? She didn’t know. One moment she’d still been trying to head for the settlement, compass in hand and Harry’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist. The next, her hands were empty and her head was lolling on her chest as she awoke from sleep.

\---

That had been two days ago.

Their meager supply of food had finally run out and Harry had done the unthinkable only a few hours before. Taking a knife that had been strapped to his boot he slit their mule’s throat, opening the jugular into a half frozen canteen in the hopes of saving whatever he could. He took his time, he had to due to how cold it was, chopping and skinning the meat and organs until he had a sack filled with the remains of the animal. It was all they could muster. There were no edible plants growing, winter made short work of anything but the trees, and whatever game the land was supposed to house had all disappeared.

Each night had gotten worse since the separation. They slept in huddled sleeping bags, practically nose to nose, listening to the wind outside how. and scream in a  _ fury. _ It was no longer just mere thoughts that broke through Hermione’s head, it was a certainty that whatever was hunting them was also screaming into that solitude. Telling them of its hunger and its pain amid the bluster of the blizzard.

Hells, maybe it even started it in the first place.

Hermione’s dreams were crazed as the night wore on, black hair, black wings, knowledge that something had been missed when she handled her preparation. But nothing could have prepared them to be hunted so thoroughly. She’d been so set in believing that the Black Expedition had done the damage to themselves, a motley crew of prisoners and mad people, that she hadn’t even considered that something else wandered these woods. Something that wanted to hunt them for their intrusion.

\---

The third day dawned with gurgling stomachs, quickly fed on meager allotments of meat from the dead mule.

\---

The fourth was much the same, except Harry at less. Gave her more, even though she tried to refuse, his odd sense of ethics and chivalry pushing aside his own survival instinct. He whispered quietly in their tent, that someone would be by to save them, Dumbledore, Neville, maybe even his on again, off again boyfriend.

Hermione knew no one was coming.

\---

Day ten did them in. The mule had run out last night, bits of broken meat fading into the nothingness that their stomachs had become, and Harry had gone with it. Whether it was disease, malnutrition, or some other malady that Hermione couldn’t have predicted, she didn’t know. 

One minute her friend was with her, cheerily trying to remember the good old days and adventures they’d gotten into as students, the next he was asleep. Never to wake up.

\---

Hermione agonized for days before making the decision. She had a brief break in the weather, the wall of clouds had lifted off the treetops to provide her with a clear line of sight to the waning sun and waking stars, giving her the faintest hope that she could follow their direction. By her reckoning, if they hadn’t gone too far off course, she was but merely twenty-five or thirty kilometers away from the settlement. It would be hard, taxing in the mountains of snow that had come tumbling to earth to bury them alive, and she was sure she’d need food.

So she’d spent the day agonizing over her decision. Staring at the shrouded body as she rocked back and forth, hearing those howls and screams in the back of her mind.

In the end the decision came down to logic.

And she wanted to live.

\---

She  _ had _ wanted to live. That was why she’d done as she did. But was it worth it?

She wasn’t sure.

The night after setting out the screams and howls had changed. Changed from loneliness and isolation and hunger into something more. Something different. Something that made her shudder in confusion when she hunkered down in her meager shelter. Something that called to her the more she chewed the fat of times best forgotten. Something that brought warmth to her core, amid the freezing of her limbs.

She made good progress during the twilight hours, when the snow had decided to let up and the clouds were out for greener pastures. Forward and onward, North as much as she could. She felt… rejuvenated. Whether it was having food finally in her belly or an objective within sight, she felt stronger than she had in weeks.

The unsettling portion was there, however.

It came with the hunger pangs, striking earlier every day. With the odd way her fingers and feet hurt, as if they were stretching when she wasn’t looking. With the way her ribs were more visible with every hour. The creaking pain in her spine and temples that seemed to never go away.

\---

She was lost again, in more ways than physical. She was sure of it. 

At some point in the night she’d gotten off track, lost her footing, fallen down until she couldn’t get up. The cold had seeped into her body as she lay there in the snow, huddled into a ball while she tried to conserve what little energy she had, stomach burning in its emptiness. She gripped down on her arms until her nails had wrung blood from the now pale skin, running in rivulets to crystallize against the snow.

At some point while she shivered and shook beneath a fresh dusting of snow,  _ something, _ had come to her. Something tall and sinewy and strong. Something black, with fur across her -  _ how did she know that? _ \- limbs, and antlers pointing up to the sky. With sharp teeth and claws and muscles bent under the strain of starvation. With a strange beauty that struck somewhere deep within her heart.

Something saved her, something doomed her.

\---

When she awoke she was in a hut. Something dug out of a tree and furnished with a mishmash of scavenged items. It was warm, a fire burning in a carved pit in the middle of the hut. The tree itself was massive, almost as wide as her tent had been and nearly three times as tall. She was safe beneath a pile of blankets in a corner, buried beneath quilts and duvets and simple thin sheets. Sitting up brought nausea to her empty stomach, and vertigo to her painful mind.

“Lay back, lay back,” a warm voice spoke up from beside her in the pile, so still and so quiet that Hermione hadn’t even noticed her.

Soft hands wrapped around her naked shoulders to pull her deeper into the piled bedding. Warm lips pressed against her temple, ghosting over too hot skin and dropping to nip against her earlobe.

Hermione didn’t know what was happening. Or why.

But she felt… comfortable. Safe, here, in the presence of someone she didn’t know. The voice was familiar enough for her to wrack her mind over it, but not enough to provide an answer.

“Where am I? Who are you?” Her voice was scratchy and dry, parched and famished.

“I’m Bellatrix. And you’re home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


	2. Skin n' Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More comma's  
I've not written smut in ages, forgive all the rust.

When Hermione next woke up her world was fire and pain. 

From the tips of her toes a heat rose up her body that consumed muscle and bone, invading her inside and out until she was slick with sweat and shivering beneath the pile of covers. The woman, Bellatrix, had moved them closer to the fire while at the same time wrapping a large blanket about their bodies. Hermione was curled in on herself with arms wrapped tightly around her knees, Bellatrix at her back and arms wrapped over top of her. 

Hermione felt like she was losing all the water in her body, drying up and peeling apart as the heat continued building. Bellatrix spoke soft words, hymns and lullabies, lips pressing into soaked hair and fingers ghosting over Hermione’s arms. 

It lasted a week, or so Hermione thought, before the heat dissipated to the point where she was left with only an aching emptiness. She was ravenous, starving even, stomach coiling around bile and air.

“Good morning, Pet,” warmth wrapped around Hermione as Bellatrix threw a leg over her hip and an arm over her chest. Warm lips pressed against Hermione’s cheek before moving lower to nibble against her jaw, warm tongue flicking out to taste her skin.

“...How long have I been out?” Hermione stretched her limbs beneath the cloying grasp of Bellatrix, toes curling and back arching as she did so. There was no immediate answer, Bellatrix continuing to press kisses against her skin, sharp nails digging into the soft skin of Hermione’s arm.

“Bellatrix?”

“You were out for a week,” the woman above her replied between sharp nips that moved down to the crook of Hermione’s neck, “You’re done now.”

“Done with...? With what?” Hermione knew something had happened, something important, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember it over the pain coming from her stomach.

“Simple,” a sharp nip to her neck drew blood, Hermione was sure of it, “You're done dying.”

_ That _ certainly tore her away from her languid stupor. Amber eyes opened wide while Hermione tried to lean up and escape Bellatrix’s clutches. “What?! What do you mean, dying?”

“I mean what I meant,” a sharp bite suddenly sent teeth into Hermione’s shoulder, bearing down with pressure and a sting before the woman released her, “You’re dead now, or more than you were when I found you.”

Hermione struggled up from beneath Bellatrix, pushing herself sideways until the woman was lying on her own, naked save the slip of a cover concealing her waist from view. She struggled to unsteady feet, body wobbling and drifting back and forth when nausea and hunger pangs overtook her.

“Ah, feeling it now?” Bellatrix chuckled from her spot on the ground while long waves of black curls bounced and swung. When her voice quieted she turned over to lay onto her back, hands clasped over her stomach and eyes peering up mischievously at Hermione. “You made the choice, so don’t look so surprised, Pet.”

“The hell do you mean?” Hermione ran fingers over her skin, feeling her ribs poking out through stretched skin and a lack of true heat that was becoming quite disconcerting. “I-I was on an expedition, to… To do something. Why can’t I remember?” Her breath caught in her throat, heart beating out a rapid but staccato rhythm that rattled her suddenly pained chest.

“We lose a bit of ourselves in trying to cross over, since we can’t do it fully we lose those bits forever. What we keep, you’ll get back.”

“What are you talking about? And, and where are my clothes? Why am I here?!”

“Pet, you need to calm down-”

“Do  _ not _ tell me to calm down, something happened, I know something went wrong and I-”

Bellatrix’s hands grasped Hermione’s ankles from her position on the floor before she yanked down and brought Hermione falling onto her rear, breath thrown from her throat and hysterical tirade cut off before it could really begin. When she was sure Hermione was down for the moment she twisted from her spot, rolling over and crawling forward to sit atop the woman’s lap.

“I told you to calm down, no, no shush!” She placed a sharp tipped finger against Hermione’s lips when she began trying to speak again, “Look, let me explain what I can, alright?”

A nod of Hermione’s head and steeled look in her eyes when she lowered her core against the cool skin beneath her was all the prompting Bellatrix needed. With deliberate slowness she began grinding herself down on the plateau of Hermione’s abdomen, back and forth and side to side while she slowly reached her grip up to grasp dainty wrists. With agonizing slowness she began pushing them down until she had Hermione pinned beneath her, breath panting from her throat and mutual heat flowing between them.

“You were with four others, let me speak without interruption Pet,” Hermione ashamedly closed her mouth and laid back flat again, “You were with four others, heading towards the Ilvermorny Settlement. You almost made it too, but you were separated. Lost. You and a boy, alone in the woods and the cold. He died. You didn’t.”

“How?” The words blurted from Hermione’s throat before she could stop them, Bellatrix halting her movement above her as a wetness pooled down to the dip of Hermione’s stomach.

“I suspect because you ate him. We don’t end up like we are without it.”

_ ‘Ate… him? Who? Why?’ _ Hermione’s thoughts were locking her still and quiet beneath the pale form of Bellatrix, mind spinning up and stomach positively growling as she lay there.

“Hungry, Pet?” Bellatrix leaned down to brush her nose against Hermione’s before tilting to the side and rubbing warm cheek on cheek, nose burying into the crook of her neck as she inhaled against her skin.

“Yes, but I find that less important than somehow dying and you saying that I bloody ate someone!”

“You did,” Bellatrix pulled back up to begin grinding again, “You had to. Nothing left to eat, starving out here alone in the woods, no one around for who knew how much distance. You  _ survived.” _

“Why am I so hungry?” Hermione’s mouth was watering as she lay beneath Bellatrix’s ministrations, her own hips lifting off the floor in time with the woman’s upward grind.

“Because that’s what we are now, hunger and starvation and cold, the winds and ice of winter and solitude that lower men to eat men, brother to turn on sister.”

“The **_fuck_** does that mean?” Hermione was rapidly tiring of this nonsense talk, tired of the way this woman was riding her without any input on her own, tired of her own beleaguered response that seemed to indicate nothing more than that she wanted it to continue. And above all that she was _hungry._ As she lay there a growl started up in the back of her throat, loud and grinding and so unlike anything she’d ever vocalized before. But she couldn’t help it; it was tearing its way up her chest and out her throat regardless of any waking input she had on it.

“Oh Pet, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear that.”

And then Bellatrix smirked down at her, all wide grin and too sharp teeth, eyes pitch black from edge to edge as something predatory and positively ancient peered down at her. And then she leaned back and  _ howled. _

\---

The fire crackled into bits and pieces that Hermione was slowly losing count of. Bellatrix was wrapped around her from behind, long legs on either side of her while warm hands shifted up and down her skin, across the inside of her thighs and out to the edges of her spine, back and forth, again and again. It was soothing, in a way, but more likely than not if she’d been  _ herself _ she’d have pushed back against the closeness. Against the odd connection she seemed to feel with the creature behind her. She knew the woman wasn’t human, that neither was she, but Bellatrix had yet to give her any further information after her impromptu howling session.

The wind outside had risen in time with her voice as it howled and screamed inside the hut, air whipping against the meager door and the sound of branches and trees crashing down beneath the fury of the storm. And it had all started when Bellatrix began howling. Hermione didn’t know what to think.

“What are we.” Her voice was quiet amid the ruckus from outside, cold and dreary as the snow beyond their door.

“The shamans, or witches, or whatever you want to call them up at Ilvermorny, they call us Wendigo.”

“I don’t remember hearing about a… thing, like that before.”

“Because you wouldn’t have, not if you came from beyond the forest. We’re not the only thing out here, I’m just the dominant  _ creature _ in this neck of the woods.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means you did what you had to do to survive. Or rather what you thought you should do. You ate the flesh of Man, desecrated a sacred corpse beneath the watchful eye of the Forest. Same as I.”

“You’re the thing that Ron saw, in the woods outside our camp.”

“Yes. I was watching your group since you passed the boundary.”

“And I ate someone.”

“Ate someone, from someone, any bit ingested is enough to let me in.” Sharp nails scratched down into Hermione’s scalp as Bellatrix finished talking.

“You don’t look anything like what we saw. Like what I saw.”

“I can,” she shifted behind Hermione, chin on her shoulder and arms lowering to wrap tight around her midsection, “If you want. You can see yourself too.”

“Maybe in a bit,” honestly she was fine if it never happened, “Right now I want to know why I’m so hungry.”

Teeth pressed up against the column of her throat, Bellatrix’s ear on her shoulder as she turned her head. A few exploratory nips turned to sharp bites that had Hermione sucking in breath as heat swirled low in her core. A hand reached down from her stomach to palm across her sex, fingers cupping her protectively and possessively at once.

“Well,” Bellatrix leaned back, “We’re spirits of starvation, cursed souls forever condemned to wander the world in search of a sustenance we cannot imbibe.”

“You say that as if I should know what spirits are.”

“You should, having come out here you should have known everything before even attempting to explore it. Ilvermorny is only the first settlement here, and they’re  _ all _ aware of what lurks within the woods. That is to say, we aren’t welcome inside it.”

“Because we’re dead.”

“Yes,” the biting resumed. 

_ Dead. _ It was an odd reality to accept but with every word that Bellatrix uttered Hermione couldn’t find it within herself to contradict or second guess her. Something deep within her, next to the gnawing pit in her stomach, seemed to agree implicitly with what she said. Bits and pieces of the past few weeks were coming back to her with every passing minute spent within Bellatrix’s arms. She was hitting a blank wall when it came to anything before entering the forest, before passing the known like, whatever that meant. She remembered the fright, their ruined food, the death of Ronald, and the eventual separation that had led to Harry’s death.

But she couldn’t remember the face of her mother. The sound of her father. Where she’d grown up or why she’d come here in the first place.

It was blank.

“Don’t think too much,” Bellatrix rested her forehead in the space between Hermione’s skull and back, “Thinking too much will hurt. Let it be. It just is, we just are. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“I think I want to see you, me, whatever we are.”

“You can tell this is a facsimile?”

“Yes,” Hermione pulled a hand up to stare at her well-worn fingers, calluses playing against her palm and nails bitten short. “I don’t know how but this feels-”

“Incomplete.”

“Yes.”

\---

Bellatrix had two mirrors in her small hut, two tall mirrors just as wide as she was and kept behind a thin bedding sheet, propped in a corner of the hollowed out tree. With a flourish she ripped the fabric guarding one, allowing Hermione the first chance she’d had to view herself since reawakening. She was thin, that was the most obvious new feature, her ribs clearly visible against her chest and knees knobby where once they’d been trim. Her form was muscular, stringy and lanky but wiry all the same. Dark rings stood out beneath her eyes, and she looked as though she hadn’t slept once in a week. Haggard, but still herself. Beautiful, in her mind, but still obviously broken. 

Bellatrix slowly meandered up behind her to wrap long limbs around her stomach, one hand reaching up to palm a breast.

“You still haven’t explained that.”

“Explained what?” Bellatrix sent her a questioning look through the mirror, eyes dark and heavy lidded as she raked her from top to bottom.

“Why I’m so comfortable with you, with this. Why I… want it.”

“Because you’re starving for more than food. Suffering for more than water. We’re touch starved,” she ran sharp nails down Hermione’s front, “Starved for positive emotion, for connection, for all the things we severed when we went against whatever Gods control these woods.”

“How is it going against them if we didn’t even know they would punish us for it?”

“The Gods are allowed to be capricious and mean, confusing and obfuscating as they will it. They’re Gods. We weren’t meant to question or go against them. We did, so now we’re paying for it.”

“Okay…”

“Are you ready?” Bellatrix released her hold and stood back, hand drilling down the length of Hermione’s spine, “It will be a shock.”

Always the pragmatist, even if she couldn’t remember it, Hermione nodded to convey her wish. She needed to see.

“The body you see in  _ that _ mirror,” Bellatrix pointed a long finger while she grabbed the sheet covering the second one, “That’s the body most others will see. They will know something is off, but they will only see a woman. This,” she tore down the sheet to allow Hermione a full view, “Is what we really are.”

_ ‘Oh no.’ _

Hermione could only stare in shock. Disbelief, horror and confusion. All manner of thoughts related to pain and sorrow bursting into her conscious mind.

She was standing in the mirror, a skeletal form of gray skin and long limbs, flesh pulled taut across every bone. Each rib, every bone, everything was visible in the emaciated form staring back at her. Her breasts were deflated without the fat cells to support them, muscles atrophied into nothingness from a body that had devoured them to fuel itself. Her hair, once curly and brown, now hung in limp strings from a scalp covered in sores and dark bruises, most of it either missing or torn halfway through. 

Her eyes were pale and milky from being open in death, sightless and unnerving as she stared back at them to see the barest hint of honey and amber that they should have been. Half her teeth were missing, tongue gone entirely, lips dry and cracked without the presence of saliva to wet them. Her fingernails and toenails were chipped and long, scraggly from scraping against something hard and unyielding.

Before she could articulate the magnitude of hurt that pulsed throughout her body, Bellatrix rushed forward to cover the mirror back up with the sheet she’d removed. Hermione caught the barest of glances when the woman had moved forward, an emaciated body like her own but with black hair instead of brown.

They were… She was… 

“No…” She began to shiver in place, dropping from her standing position into a half seated lump on the hard floor, Bellatrix rushing from the covered mirror to wrap herself around her in a protective grip.

“You don’t have to see it again. It’s only a silver backed mirror that will show it, silver is dangerous for us now. All the rest, however they’re made, are fine. We can’t see ourself, and they cannot see us either.”

Hermione heard her words, locked the knowledge away somewhere in the back of her brain, but as pain and fear flooded through her system she was lost to unconsciousness.

\---

When she awoke again she was more ravenous than before, mind temporarily blanketed from the memories in the mirror by the churning hunger thrumming throughout her stomach, bleeding down into her core. Bellatrix seemed to have been consumed by the same blinding heat, on her knees between Hermione’s legs. Her face was paused just above the curve of her sex while her eyes glinted dangerously in the half light given off by the fire. 

“May I?” Her voice was a husky whisper under the howling of the wind outside their -  _ Their? _ \- hut. Hermione couldn’t stop to think about it as she flooded with a hunger for sensation and connection that demanded to be met. She nodded her acquiescence, head tilting backwards to lay against the bundle of cloth at her back.

Bellatrix began slowly, tongue smoothing up the skin on the inside of her thigh, warm breath spreading out across skin that broke into goose pimples at the sensation. Warm lips pressed down into the skin beneath her breath, sharp teeth biting down to break skin and release blood, Hermione tensing and sucking in breath at the sensation. Bellatrix’s arms wrapped underneath her legs and around her torso to place warm palms against her pelvis when she scooted forward, blood on her lips, and pressed a warm kiss onto her slit. Her tongue explored next, licking up and down to push aside skin and dip within to taste the nectar freely flowing from Hermione.

One minute, two, in what amounted to no time at all she’d driven Hermione to an edge with her skillful tongue, back and forth in patterns that brought a flush to her chest and neck and shortened her breath into harsh pants broken only by low moans and gasps of pleasure.

She didn’t last long after that. A final scream broke out of her chest to fill the room when she came, Bellatrix stuck to her with lips and sharp tongue.

When it was over and Bellatrix had ridden her out, the woman released her hold before crawling upwards to wrap protectively around Hermione, nails digging deeply into her skin as she held the quivering mess that Hermione had become.

It was lovely, the best feeling she could remember -  _ regardless of how little that was _ \- but it wasn’t enough.

She was still ravenous.

“Not enough…”

“Never is,” Bellatrix pressed a kiss against her lips, mouth still tasting of Hermione. When she pulled away she settled into the blankets beneath them, curling into a ball as she drew Hermione further within. “We still have one more form.”

“Tomorrow, tomorrow please. I can’t… I can’t take anything else tonight.”

“As you wish, Pet.”


	3. Metal and Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by:
> 
> Soylent Green,  
The Cleric Beast,  
and Ginger Snaps
> 
> No edit, no beta  
idk how long this will get.

Waking brought hunger and pain that distilled itself down into a swirling pit of cramping muscle and acidic bile.

She shifted beneath the still sleeping form of Bellatrix while her limbs stretched out and the other woman nuzzled closer into her neck and cheek. Hot breath skated across her skin while Hermione began whining pitifully through the pain inside her abdomen. The noise, small and subdued though it was, woke up Bellatrix in a matter of seconds. Her arms tightened and pulled until Hermione was forced onto her side to face the fire, Bellatrix throwing her leg over her hip while pressing lips against the back of her neck.

“Good morning,” Bellatrix nipped her skin with sharp teeth, “Sleep well?”

“Yes. But I’m-”

“Hungry? You get used to it.”

“This is forever then, always like this?” She curled inwards on herself while Bellatrix tightened the grip her limbs had around her body, “Always this hungry…”

“Mhmm,” the body behind her hummed, “Always and forever. We should hunt soon, it won’t sate it for long but you’ll feel better.”

“...Hunt?” Hermione turned her head in an effort to look at Bellatrix, only to be blocked by the mass of her curly hair that hid her from view.

The body behind her shifted and stretched as limbs began to peel away from Hermione’s skin until the woman was on her back and slowly sitting up. Hermione turned around, her eyes roving unashamedly over the length of Bellatrix’s nude form, the hunger in her body overridden by a sudden need to know. A need for more answers. Her…  _ education, _ had been interrupted the prior night and Bellatrix had promised to show her what still remained. If she focused on the things she didn’t, but wanted to know, she could ignore the lingering memory of the body she’d seen in the mirror.

“Yes, Pet. Hunt. We need to eat, though it will not sustain us.”

“What do we eat?” Hermione followed the woman as she rose to her feet, leaning forward into Bellatrix and wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

“Meat,” fingers petted down the tangled length of her hair, “Human preferably. But an animal will make do in a pinch.”

“We eat people.” The saliva in Hermione’s mouth turned to ash as she said it, bile creeping up the back of her throat as she leaned heavily into Bellatrix’s arms.

“Yes. Now come,” Bellatrix pulled away and started towards the simple wooden door blocking the exit of their home,  _ ‘When did I come to think of it as that?’, _ her hips swaying side to side and black hair thrown over her shoulder. “Come on Pet, we’ve things to do.”

\---

The outside air was cold on Hermione’s skin as she followed Bellatrix deeper into the forest. Drifts of snow had piled in the interim since she’d arrived, making mountains and hills that covered the ground in a lumpy quilt of white. The air was crystal clear, nary a breeze on the wind, and small tufts of snow fell from the high up branches as the warm sun up above heated them into remission. There was birdsong between the trees, the smell and noise of small animals attending to the tedium of their lives, practically a cacophony to her ears after the extended silence inside their home.

“Where were all the animals?” She asked her guide, long strides eaten by the snow at their feet until she was practically glued to Bellatrix’s back.

“I drove them off when I called the storm.” The woman was moving at a measured pace, twisting around trees and hidden bushes with an ease that had Hermione practically bursting with jealousy. She wasn’t sure why, likely Bellatrix would have an answer if she wanted to ask, but she was almost completely at ease with their continued trek into the forest. Naked. After just discussing that they needed to eat bodies.

“We won’t die again, will we? If we don’t eat?” Hermione asked her question from Bellatrix’s side, peering up at the woman while also trying to maintain her walking speed.

“I don’t know. I remember I used to starve myself, ignore the Hunt, but I’d end up going so mad with hunger that I’d awake and find I’d fed while in a blackout. I don’t think the Gods want us to escape our suffering through another death.”

“You seem to have a lot of belief in these Gods,” Hermione skipped over a fallen branch, Bellatrix reaching out to steady her when she landed, “I don’t know if I used to believe in them. Still don’t, actually.”

“Pet, we’re walking manifestations of hunger. Dead spirits given unnatural life. Gods are to be expected at this point.” The woman smiled a dangerous grin as she finished speaking, her eyes suddenly alive with light and fire despite their onyx depths.

“Do you consider yourself one? A God? Or something of the like?” Hermione threaded her arm with Bellatrix’s, slowing the woman and pulling warm skin to skin.

“Something of the like. We can call down a blizzard stronger than any natural phenomena, we survive freezing weather and snow or ice without a single sign of injury or discomfort,” she stopped and kicked the snow around her feet to emphasize her point, “We’re something, that’s for sure.”

“You’ll have to show me how you did that. Even back at- at home, you howled and brought the winds. I want that knowledge.”

“And I’ll show you,” Bellatrix spun Hermione around until they were chest to chest, warm arms wrapped around each other, “I’ll show you everything,” she planted a kiss amid auburn hair, “Anything and everything.”

\---

They wandered through the forest for what felt like hours before Hermione finally caught sight of something that broke the monotonous outline of the forest. It was faint at first, a line of dark wood approaching over the horizon, but soon enough she could see it for what it was. A fence. 

Long and dark, nearly three times as tall as she was, the fence was made from felled trees stacked one next to the other, the tops cut down to form strong points that had been charred and carved into sharpness. A space a few meters off from the fence was cleared of snow and ice, green grass unnaturally vibrant in the space between the woods and the settlement.

“This is Ilvermorny, first settlement and largest of the three.” Bellatrix stood before the strip of grass, head staring up at the peaks of the fence and hand tightly gripped around Hermione’s.

“Three?” She looked to Bellatrix in confusion. “I thought… I get the feeling that I didn’t know there were only three.”

“There are smaller encampments, they pop up all the time and disappear just as quickly, but there are only three settlements. Enclaves. Whatever you wish to call them.”

She turned and began to lead them along the edge of the fence-line, always staying in the snow and never coming near the grass. Hermione had questions regarding that, but since Bellatrix looked pensive and her limbs had become stiff with pent-up energy, she thought it best to keep them to herself for the time being.

The space curved around in a circle that brought them from walking North to swinging East, the curve bowing and retreating at times as the fence-line shifted around some natural obstacle or another, frequently large boulders or ancient trees just as wide as the one Hermione had woken up in. Minutes passed like that, silent and serene, before a sight to her right caught her attention. 

“Bellatrix,” the woman stopped and turned, “What’s that?” Hermione pointed up to a wooden platform extending over the fence, a railing nailed to the sides of it to provide some sort of lookout.

“The humans here still have things to fear beyond me. They keep a lookout at night, daytime is sacred and most unnatural things are either sleeping or hiding away from the harshness of the sun. They’ll man those platforms during my blizzards or deep at night. Anything they see, they attack with spears and arrows. We’re safe, for now.”

Explanation given, Bellatrix set off again while tugging the hand within her grip to lead her forward once more.

Minutes passed in silence between the two women before they came to another irregularity. A smell this time, instead of sight. It rose and faded on the soft breeze blowing all about them, something earthy and fresh, iron and copper like the smell of a steak before it was seared. Hermione had her own preconceptions about what was creating that smell, but still she waited for Bellatrix to explain it.

“Almost there Pet, no Hunt for us today. Seems they’ve had a bad time of the last snow.”

She led her further on until they came across a large set of wooden doors, cut into the fence they looked like a part of it until further inspection revealed a seam and marks in the grass to indicate something swing outward. The green continued, grass extending out further than before, and sitting in a pile at the base of the snows were large bundles wrapped in cloth, twine laced around to keep them all together. By now the smell was everywhere around Hermione, stinging her nostrils and igniting a fire deep in her gut that made walking a pain, moving a chore, ripping and shredding the inside of her until she could hardly focus on anything else.

“Pet,” Bellatrix gripped down tightly on Hermione’s arm, she’d continued walking forward without noticing Bellatrix stilling. “We take two, one for me, one for you, no more. There are others in these forests that need sustenance much the same as we do.”

“But…” Saliva pooled in Hermione’s mouth to spill out down her lips, teeth and jaw aching as she stared at the wrapped bundles.

“We take two. Now come,” Bellatrix released her grip before starting forward, “Grab one.”

Hermione felt as if she was locked away from herself. Viewing her movements and actions from an outside perspective. She watched with ravenous attention as her body moved beside Bellatrix, kneeling down into the snow to wrap hands and arms securely around a brown bundle, shuffling backwards to drag it out of the pile. Her movements mirrored Bellatrix’s, eyes half closed and mouth hanging open, her limbs stretching and straining as she dragged it backwards into a snowy drift.

“Now what?” She asked, hands pulling impatiently at the covering, fingers twitching, jaw aching, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest.

“Now we feast.” Bellatrix spared her no more words, tearing apart the covering and tossing aside the rags until she’d revealed a pale corpse no more than twenty years old, a woman with long red hair that was bound into some form of funerary braid. Her skin was milky white, darkened only by the shift of brown cloth laying in tatters across her corpse, frozen from the wind and chill after who knew how long of a time spent outside. Before Hermione’s eyes she watched the woman’s grin stretch out unnaturally, teeth suddenly sharp within her maw and fingers tipped with points as sharp as knives. She dug in, throwing herself forward with a gusto that had Hermione’s stomach clenching, ripping and tearing flesh with her fingers and mouth.

Something broke inside her, watching Bellatrix succumb to her unnatural nature. Something hidden deep within that had acted as a lock to secure these new feelings and intuitions, something that had been a sieve to settle ideas and thoughts that weren’t quite her own.

It broke, and Hermione with it.

She could feel the change, the sharpness of  _ her _ claws, the lengthening of  _ her _ tongue, the dagger like points of  _ her _ teeth.

She ripped, tore, and pulled until the bundle at her feet was uncovered, fully revealed to the light. She spared it no thought, refusing to look at it’s face with her last gasping portion of sanity, digging into the hardened muscles of the abdomen laid bare before her.

\---

When she rose up from the shattered portion of her mind, Hermione retched. 

Nothing came out.

Bellatrix was on her knees beside her, arm out on her shoulder as some form of support, eyes dark and inscrutable in the slowly fading light. Quick glances from the corner of Hermione’s eyes revealed the woman to be absolutely covered in blo-,  _ red, _ red streaking down from her mouth and neck to spill out across her breasts and stomach. She was painted in it, drowning in it, pale skin practically shining wherever it wasn’t covered by the stuff. A glance downwards revealed a similar sight, Hermione’s form painted just the same as Bellatrix, her hands and arms covered in drying flakes and splotches of red.

“Good girl,” Bellatrix cooed, leaning in once she saw Hermione wasn’t going to break down right then and there, “First meal done. You did better than me, when I first ate. I stared at the corpse for damned near a week before giving in. You’re a natural.”

“No, no I’m not!” Hermione tilted to her side, panic rising in her chest as she fell off to the side into a drift of snow, “I’m- I’m a-”

“Monster. Demon. Spirit.  _ Wendigo. _ You’re not human, Pet. You’ll get used to it.” Bellatrix shot her a crooked grin before standing to her feet, arm and hand held out for Hermione to grasp.

“All those prior sensibilities,” Bellatrix leaned down and hooked Hermione’s elbow when she didn’t move quick enough, “All those ideals and normalcies beaten into you by wherever you were from,” she hauled Hermione to her feet without a single ounce of effort, “It’s all by the wayside now. We’re different, and you best accept it.” A long tongue, black now instead of a  _ human _ pink, darted out to press against Hermione’s chin and cheek. The muscle swiped up and across Hermione’s lips, the blood staining her pulling away to smear as it passed.

“But-”

“Come on,” Bellatrix interrupted, “We best leave now. They don’t actively hunt us, but they also won’t tolerate us remaining here after dark.”

With stiff legs Hermione set off at Bellatrix’s side, her stomach temporarily sated and mind buzzing with questions and concerns. She’d  _ eaten _ a body. She hadn’t seen much of any remains, a few bones and discarded organs, her eyes perhaps refusing to account for anything other than that. She’d done it willingly, diving right in to follow Bellatrix’s example.

And the more she thought on it, the less she regretted it. She was full! Her stomach practically  _ sang! _ Even if she’d done something so horrid, she’d done it before in the name of survival, right? Was this not the same? Protracted, willing, and far more gruesome than before, yes. But in the end it was the same, or so she concluded.

Rationalization was a hell of a drug.

She hurried along after Bellatrix, feet sinking into snow that didn’t burn with cold, strides confident and filled with energy. 

\---

“Why does the fire never go out?” 

“What?”

“The fire. I haven’t seen you stoke it once.” Hermione leaned forward out of Bellatrix’s grip, pushing legs off of her lap as she brought her face mere inches from the flame.

“I don’t know. I’ve just… never needed to.” Bellatrix pulled back on Hermione, crushing arms wrapping around to hold her still and close. “It was here when I found this place, and I’ve just used it ever since.”

Hermione made a noncommittal sound of approval at that, head leaning backwards onto Bellatrix’s shoulder as she shifted to find a comfier position. Her stomach, previously sated until almost an hour after her  _ ‘meal’,  _ was once again straining and biting down on itself. It hurt, always a present feeling she couldn’t just shove away, but it was becoming so routine that it would fade at times into the background. Always present, hovering over her shoulder, but able to be ignored for the most part.

Bellatrix was a far more interesting thing for her to focus on.

“Will you show me now?” Hermione turned her head to press open-mouthed kisses against a pale column of throat, “You said you would earlier, but we’ve been here for hours and I still don’t see antlers on your head.”

“Ha,” Bellatrix tightened her grip, “Well, Little Pet, since you’ve been so patient and listened oh so well to me earlier, yes, I’ll show you. And you can see yourself.” Bellatrix pushed Hermione off her lap, letting her fall into a pile at her feet, before standing and heading towards the covered mirrors. She tore off the covering from the mirror on the left, non-silver and decidedly safe as far as Hermione was concerned, before turning around and crossing her arms.

“Come on Pet, get over here.”

Hermione rose up from the floor to take long strides towards Bellatrix, intending to wrap herself around the woman before a stiff hand pushed against her chest to keep her away.

“I’ll show you. Then it’ll be up to you to figure out your own form. Understood?”

“Yes.” She bit her lip and stepped back from Bellatrix, arms crossing self consciously across her abdomen.

“You saw it partially when we fed,” Hermione nodded at her words, “Well it’s much the same to release it all. Let the hunger fill you, relax yourself, and-”

Before the woman finished speaking Hermione’s eyes tore open with rapt disbelief.

Bellatrix’s body, tall and lanky with pale coloration as white as snow,  _ darkened. _ Her skin turned an unnaturally ashen gray, her arms practically coming alive with muscle as they slowly extended. Her face was screwed up in neither concentration nor pain, looking more instead like pleasure or a sweet release. Across her shoulders and down between the space of her collarbone and midpoint above her breasts, a thin downy layer of black fur began to develop, spreading out and over her arms and back until most of her body was covered in the inky material. 

Twin nubs, little black spots on her forehead, sprouted forward at a length before curving upwards and twinning off, spikes and points erupting along their length. Antlers, dark and black as charcoal, twisted into a final shape more magnificent than any elk Hermione had ever seen. Like drifting snow the blackness covering them chipped and fell away to reveal the white bone hidden beneath. Her head bowed under their weight, neck muscles stiffening before she was able to hold her head up fully, long black curls twisting and dangling off her shoulders.

Her hands, once tipped with thin and dainty fingers, grew outwards into long claws along with the overall lengths of her arms, only a few centimeters, but enough to elongate and unnaturalize her form. Her hands opened their grip and her fingers flexed, before her movement settled into relaxation. Her legs fared much the same as her arms, the arch of her feet elongating as sharp talons replaced toes, heel stretching up and out until she stood on the balls of her feet. 

Already taller than Hermione, the woman now stood a good half a meter higher than she did before, covered in black fur, leering down at her with undisguised pleasure at Hermione’s startled look.

The rest of it happened while Hermione remained focused on Bellatrix’s chest, her abdomen sinking into an imitation of starvation, caving and hollowing while her ribs broke through paper thin skin. The bones were bright white, snapped off at her sternum like a sideways maw of gleaming daggers.

It was horrifying.

Revolting.

And yet Hermione couldn’t look away.


	4. Broken Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The crazy train has no brakes  
minimal editing

Seconds ticked over to minutes before Bellatrix had finished changing. When it was complete, the woman she knew had been subsumed and so altered that for a moment she was concerned that the creature had crawled out from the depths of her worst nightmares. 

Her head was massive; wolf like and covered in skin that stretched and accentuated every bone, long white teeth gleaming like daggers in an open maw, sporting an enormous rack of antlers that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an elk. Her eyes, once onyx and inviting, were now dark pits so deeply recessed that Hermione had trouble even pinpointing them in the soft light coming off of their fire. A curve had been introduced to her spine, bent over as she was to support new muscle and the weight balanced on top of her shoulders, an unnatural pull to every ligament that stood out through her skin.

Black fur, long and shaggy, had grown up all over her body with the exception of her neck and chest. Each strand was an inky black that formed together to give the illusion that there was no depth, just one giant plane of black mass that hid her from view. Instead of the black covering across her chest, she’d instead seemed to have imploded, ribs poking out above a too thin stomach that showed the outline of her spine beneath it, spikes of bone splintering off from her sternum to form a large sideways gaping maw.

The rest of her was moderately normal, if a two point five meter hell-beast could in any way be considered as such. A pair of elongated hands and claws, feet that turned into a blend of wolf and cougar paw’s tipped with talons nearly as long as Hermione’s palm.

By all rights Hermione should have been terrified. She should have run screaming from the room and gone so far as to end up back in civilization, or a far mountain from which to never return.

But she didn’t. All she could feel from the monster staring back at her was a curious form of warmth. The creature, Bellatrix, was… worried. Embarrassed, even.

She moved forward on soft paws until Hermione was standing directly before her, a single clawed hand outstretching to press a finger against her cheek before trailing down her neck. All around Hermione a rumbling noise filled the room, thrumming through her bones and chest until it reverberated her inside and out.

“Are… are you purring?” She looked up into the demonic black eyes and smiled wide and bright at the bashfulness she could see there. The noise abruptly stopped as Bellatrix lowered her head and began to turn away. “No, no, don’t stop,” Hermione grasped the furry muzzle and turned her back, “It’s cute. I like it.”

Bellatrix’s snout pressed back against Hermione’s side until she’d been pushed nearly off her feet. The plainly expectant look in her eyes told Hermione what was required of her next, and she stepped away to comply with the wordless request.

“Suppose it’s my turn now,” she petted down the length of Bellatrix’s snout, “Well you said to relax myself, fall into hunger…” Hermione stepped backwards from Bellatrix’s large form with a hand trailing off the wet tip of her snout. If she was honest with herself she was slightly worried about the upcoming change. Bellatrix hadn’t looked to be in any pain during her change, but Hermione was quite worried that accruing a tonne of mass and broken limbs would carry with it some form of discomfort.

But she tried.

She stretched her limbs as much as she could before placing her feet at shoulder width apart, clearing her mind in the same movements. Once she felt empty enough, she focused herself in on the feeling of her hunger, the ever present pit gnawing on her stomach like an ulcer that never went away. Her mind sprang unbidden to the desire to fill that hunger, close it up and bury it beneath something warm and wet before it could disappear again. Her body shivered at the phantom memories from before Bellatrix had found her; cold and weary with nothing but gristle in her stomach and a body that was slowly falling apart, shutting down, an ache that never ended.

She could almost feel it physically _ click _ in her mind once she’d done it. A lock shut down over knowledge and ability, only to be swiftly replaced with a new knowledge, a new insight, muscle memory for a body she’d never had. She never felt the changes that rolled their way through her body, never felt the bones erupt from her chest in a cracked spray through paper thin skin. Her breaths came labored and tinged with unique smells - _ salt, sweat, arousal?, _ ** _meat_ ** _ , _\- as she let herself go, falling out from her mind into something decidedly lower.

When it was over she felt heavy and wound up, a spring ready for release, muscles tensed and limbs twitching as she held herself together. Her hands, _ claws, _ gripped down into the floor hard enough to leave gashes in the ages old wood. Her eyes opened up, the sudden sight of something long and obfuscating destroying her sense of vision until her brain had a chance to reinterpret the view. Bellatrix was staring back at her with a thinly veiled amusement, excitement evident in the way she bounced in place like an overeager puppy.

Hermione _ howled. _

\---

Hermione saw the world through a thick gray fog, her mind covered in base emotion and stark action executed almost immediately by her tumultuous new body.

_ Hunt - Feed - Run _

The thoughts rang out over and over as Bellatrix continued leading her deeper into the forest, swirls of wind and snow covering up their mad dash. A small portion of her rational mind still remained amid the unnatural monstrosity that had taken up residence inside of her, and in its stupor and delight it had named Bellatrix the _ ‘Black-Demon-Puppy-Deer’, _ a thought which brought both halves of her endless amusement, snickers coming out as howling barks that echoed as she ran. Bellatrix was large, older, _ dominant, _ and so she deserved her respect, but the twin thoughts of Hermione couldn’t help but find her description amusing.

Hermione was far to lax to care about the odd looks and shuddering howls that Bellatrix sent her, far too caught up in the thrill of the chase; the howls and screams of terror and delight that burst forth from Bellatrix’s throat only to be mirrored by her own. It was freedom, power, speed, all these things rolled up into one. It outshone the hunger and desolation, it was brighter than the question on her mind; if this was punishment, _ where was the pain? _

\---

The pain lay in waking to herself with a body clothed in blood and face smeared with gore. The pain lay frozen to the ground as bits of bone and shredded skin. The pain lay with the sudden flare of hunger that beat its way into her stomach and heart while she licked off the blood staining her claws. In swirling a decidedly inhuman black tongue all around the woman - _ Beast _\- who had become her lover. It was knowing that she’d been the one to initiate, the one to pounce and rip and tear, appearing from the whiteout to blindside a poor band of travelers and pull them limb from limb as she fought over scraps with Bellatrix.

The pain was in knowing she’d do it all again in a single heartbeat, even as she cried and fell to the ground in shame. The pain was in knowing her hunger would never abate.

She collapsed in front of the eternal flame once Bellatrix was able to drag her back to the hut, her body shivering and quaking. Her stomach was back to digesting air and bile, fingers drawing red ribbons on Bellatrix’s skin while the woman held her and soothed her aching mind and body with soft words and warm tongue.

They both kept their inhuman parts out after that. Bellatrix no longer worried she would scare Hermione away, and Hermione was no longer willing to pretend she was anything other than a monster. Claws, fangs, black tongue so unlike the old. Reminders of what they were.

Even after all the pain and terror that had followed her around in the days after her massacre, Hermione still couldn’t help but focus on how lovely the sensations had been. The breeze across her fur, body sprinting through the forest with inhuman speed and Bellatrix at her side.

It was pain.

But she loved it.

\---

Three months managed to pass by in the quiet seclusion of the woods. Hermione filled her days with hunts, feeding regularly on the dead thrown away by Ilvermorny and the hapless travelers that attempted to cross the frozen landscape. Her days were routine; talking, playing, sex and relaxation. There was little else for the duo to accomplish, their paired life making up for boredom and tedium that would have set in otherwise.

Or at least her days were quiet, up until a shrill whistle pierced their shared home.

Bellatrix roused from slumber first, pulling Hermione from a tangle of limbs and setting out on wary legs outside their door. Four people awaited them.

Two of them were older; one a mix of silver and gray-brown hair, the other all auburn that kept its shine in old age. The other two were young; one small and blonde, the other taller but no less young, his hair so dark it may have been black as it shone from the sun above them. Each were clad in skins and furs fashioned from the animals of the forest, dressed for the cold and shifting back and forth as their breath crystallized before them.

“What do you want?” Bellatrix’s voice was clipped and to the point, honest and direct in a way that spoke to her knowledge of the visitors. When she finished speaking she sidled in front of Hermione, almost as if to protect her. _ ‘Oh, well that just won’t do,’ _ Hermione thought, side stepping the older woman and joining her shoulder to shoulder. Bellatrix shot her a quick glare that Hermione shot down with a grin full of fangs, the disagreement put behind them as quickly as it came.

Hermione felt the faintest form of recognition as she looked across the two older visitors, each possessing something that set off alarm bells in her head. The silver and brown haired woman looked at her with a smile, her eyes veiled in white despite the dead center stare she was receiving. The other was staring pensively at the ground near Bellatrix’s feet, her arms crossed over her chest and breath exhaling in large bursts. The other two though, they were…

“...Luna?” 

Hermione’s question was punctuated by her black tongue darting out to lick across dry lips, her body shifting side to side in sudden confusion and apprehension. She was almost one hundred percent sure the woman across from her was the Luna she remembered from her brief expanse of memories.

“Yes, Hermione. It’s good to see you.” Luna smiled as she finished, though Hermione couldn’t help but notice that her eyes avoided her much like the older brunette.

“Don’t Pet, wait,” Bellatrix’s arm settled across her chest, eyes never once leaving the older pair. “What do you want Andromeda?”

“We just want to talk,” the woman, Andromeda, said. Her eyes shifted across the grass as she spoke, breath exhaling in a puff as silence began to set in.

“Why won’t you look at us?” Hermione stepped away from Bellatrix when no one began speaking. “Who are you both? And Luna, I thought… Neville?” She turned to look at the boy, really a man, memories from their time in the forest blooming to the forefront of her mind. An easy smile graced his face as he looked at her, shifting side to side on his feet as if he’d blow away in a brief wind.

“Hermione,” he nodded his head at her, “It’s good to see you again.”

If either he or the others were bothered by their nakedness, none made comment. Luna’s mirroring of Andromeda’s actions seemed far too purposeful to be ashamed, or something of that ilk.

“I think it’s best we talked inside,” the blind woman began, “I know it’s not really cold for you but my old bones are freezing out here.”

Bellatrix appeared to waver between decisions, her hands clenching and releasing until her claws spilled blood down into the white snow covering their feet.

“Fine.”

\---

The everlasting fire situated between the two sides, one visitors, one residents, served as good a use as a line drawn in the sand. When they’d returned inside Hermione had immediately curled up in Bellatrix’s lap, back to chest and warm arms wrapped around her midsection. The woman behind her leaned down to press warm kisses amid her tangled hair, soft rumbles of affection reverberating throughout her chest.

“Well then, now what.” Bellatrix’s voice pierced the silence, loud and commanding inside her home.

“Would one of you please tell me exactly what’s going on? I thought you two were dead,” she pointed at Luna and Neville, voice whining and pitiful in her confusion. Her mind was on two sides, one remembering their trek through the woods, the other worrying over memories she no longer possessed.

“Well I can help you with that at least,” the two-toned woman began, “Bellatrix here drove your expedition off course. She then proceeded to kill one of your party before separating your two groups. I suppose she was waiting for you to die. Only, curiously enough, you didn’t. Your friends here ended up making it into Ilvermorny only a half day after the separation.”

“Why were we in the Forest to begin with?”

“...You really don’t remember?” Neville shot her a pitying look that had her hackles rising and a warm flush breaking out across her skin.

“No, I don’t. All I remember is our time in the Forest, nothing before. I know who you were to me then but nothing else. Nothing to connect it with the Outside.”

“It’s a normal reaction,” Andromeda interrupted them, “They lose a piece of themselves when they try to cross over. Bellatrix suffered the same.”

When the woman said her name, Bellatrix began to growl in agitation, her thunder immediately picked up by Hermione. If this woman, Andromeda, displeased Bellatrix in some manner, and if this was how Bellatrix chose to show it, Hermione would stand with her.

“What are you? Why won’t the two of you look at us?” Hermione’s eyes shifted between Andromeda and Luna when her growl finally died down, each woman staring plainly at the floor beneath their crossed legs.

“We can see you, and have no wish to do so.” Andromeda’s voice was flat and final, a hint of sadness and something raw tainting her words. It tore away the air from Hermione’s throat when she realized what she meant, remembering how Bellatrix said that _ most _ people wouldn’t be able to tell they were inhuman. Dead. _ Wendigo. _

“Oh gods…” Hermione shuffled within Bellatrix’s gasp, pressing herself tighter to the warmth at her back. “What about you, Neville? And you,” she shifted to staring at the two-toned woman, “Whoever you are.”

“We cannot, Ms. Granger. Nevillie is not a Seer and I am blind. My name is Narcissa, by the way.”

“Okay. Just call me Hermione, that last name means nothing to me. Why are you here?”

Bellatrix grunted an assent to her question, claws raking down Hermione’s thighs as she waited for an answer.

“There’s to be another expedition. Or more accurately, it’s a rescue mission. They’re heading out and will cross into Durmstrang. They’ll leave on the next New Moon, and you’ll need to intercede before they get halfway in. Drive them back or tear them down, just ensure whatever returns to the Outside has no story to tell.” Andromeda’s voice had been calm when she’d spoken, but Hermione’s reply was anything but.

“What?! You want us, me and Bellatrix, to hunt people down for daring to enter the Forest? What the hells for?”

“Pet,” Bellatrix dug a claw into the meat of Hermione’s thigh, “Calm yourself. We’ll do it.”

“The fuck I will!” Hermione whirled off of Bellatrix’s lap to land down on the floor, scooting herself away from the group, “Why in the world would I _ kill _ for a reason like that?”

“Are you implying you’d need a reason to kill?” Bellatrix shot her a dark smirk that had Hermione growling and baring teeth.

“You didn’t tell her about the Compact?”

“I had forgotten to do so Androm-”

“You’ve been out here together for months! And you haven’t once thought to bring it up? Bellatrix Druella Blac-”

_ “Do not call me _ ** _that_**_!” _ Bellatrix’s voice carried with it all the fury of a storm, a roar that had their visitors covering their ears and Hermione wincing in pain, “Those names mean _ nothing _ to me! ** _Get out_**_!” _

Their visitors moved as fast as humanly possible, quite a bit slower than Hermione would have liked, Andromeda pulling up the blind woman while Neville and Luna slinked out into the woods with a silent look shared between them.

“I’ll take care of your damned expedition,” Bellatrix yelled before the door fully shut, “But do not return here unless invited.” Her words were final, and with a nod of her head Andromeda stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her, the group slowly moving off back to Ilvermorny.

When the sounds of feet crunching on snow finally faded into the distance, Hermione was convinced they’d left for good. In a flash she returned to Bellatrix’s lap, sitting forward instead to straddle her hips and lay her head between the crook of the woman’s neck.

“What’s the compact?” She asked in a hushed whisper.

“It’s an agreement. A vow brokered between the settlements and those of us who live outside their walls. Well, those of us with enough sanity left to still listen to reason. It’s a mutual understanding on how we live.”

“Meaning,” Hermione asked, tongue sneaking out to lick at Bellatrix’s pulse, “What, exactly?”

“Meaning that they will not hunt us, or retaliate for a kill that we take outside their walls. We feed, they mourn. They’ll take no action against us. In return, we remain outside their walls and help them by intervening when those from Outside wander into the Forest.”

“So we’re free to kill them…? That makes no sense to me, why wouldn’t they retaliate? If we kill a loved one, _ murdered _ a loved one?” Her body shivered in Bellatrix’s hold as she waited for the woman to find her words.

“Pet, if a bear ate an elk, then the bear did it to eat. Do the elk seek revenge on the bear? No. Does the grass seek revenge on an elk for grazing? They see it all as a cycle. As long as it happens within the Forest, they see it as nature following its path. It’s a risk they’re willing to live with. Of course, there are those that don’t like it, but the majority understand it and accept it.”

“And in return we kill for _ them.” _

A sharp claw raked down Hermione’s spine until she’d sliced open the skin and dripped red onto her finger, the wound healing almost immediately when she pulled away to taste it with her tongue. This too had become routine for them, exploration of their bodies with just a hint of pain to make it different. Hermione couldn’t help the warm shudder that ran through her spine to light sparks within her core, her chest arching into Bellatrix and a growl rumbling up her chest.

“In return we keep them hidden. Killing is just a means to an end.”

“Why?”

“So that what is outside remains as such. No one should ever find out about the people living here.”

Hermione pulled away, her clawed hands gripping onto her lover’s shoulders and a questioning look piercing her black eyes, “What’s wrong with that?”

“You came here on an expedition, right?”

“Yes,” Hermione pushed down on Bellatrix as she replied, the woman falling to her back and pulling her on top of her chest.

“Well that’s what they’re going to do too. They want to understand. If they came here and found us, they’d also want to understand _ us. _”

“And that means…?”

“It means they’ll chop down all our trees, invade every settlement, round up everything and everyone _ different _ like you or me. Study, observe, understand. I don’t know about you,” she ran a clawed finger along Hermione’s side, “But I don’t fancy getting locked inside a silver cage to be poked and prodded or torn into pieces in an effort to lend them _ understanding. _We’re magic, not science. They cannot understand it. They’ll just end up destroying it.”

“And so they send you out-”

“And others, when I’m not around. Same as in Durmstrang and the other settlement.”

“You keep them from finding everyone. Everything.”

“Yes, and if I can’t, I make sure not enough of them find anything. And no one leaves. That’s why your former friends are still here.”

“Who were those women to you?”

Bellatrix remained tight-lipped after Hermione asked that question. She neither replied, nor spoke on it, providing Hermione with a simple, ‘Later’, in response.

\--- 

It turned out that later really meant, ‘Later that afternoon.’ 

The pair snagged two bodies from the pile outside Ilvermorny, Hermione’s sharpened claws easily tearing through the brown fabric to reach the treat held within. The body was small and slight, a woman no older than herself, her features frozen in the patchy daylight to stand out in stark relief. She was small, blonde, a large braid tied up with twine and metal in a beautiful funerary display. Her eyes were closed tight and sunken in slightly, leading Hermione to imagine that she was just sleeping to wait out a new morning to come.

She supposed in a way she was, having passed from this world to the next, a trip Hermione had been robbed of and remained sorely glad she had. She didn’t hold much in the way of beliefs, but becoming one of the un-dead had certainly given her a unique perspective on things.

She thanked the dead woman before digging in to devour the body, her teeth sharper and claws longer than when she’d first been taught to feast. She ripped down into the cold jugular, mouth tearing flesh into a jagged patch when she leaned back to sit on her haunches and swallow. Bellatrix was sitting to her side, doing much the same, tearing into an older man from his chest up, her long claws gleaming brightly from a sheen of warmed up blood and viscera. It painted along the column of her throat and Hermione had the faintest thought of wanting to lick it clean.

She was beautiful, if a bit macabre.

The older woman finished her meal before Hermione, black eyes peering off into the distance of the fence above their heads. With a silent movement she wrapped herself around Hermione from behind, prompting a growl from Hermione as a warning not to touch her meal.

“Relax, Pet.” Bellatrix ran claws down her sides and across her stomach, “I’m hungry for something else.”

Without any pause Hermione continued to crunch her way through bone, slicing strips off the body as she did so, Bellatrix’s hand lowering until sharp claws were raking against her slit, fingers dipping down to cover her. With soft movements she began to rub and grind her palm down against a sweet spot, Hermione purring through the bones in her mouth.

“We have an audience,” Bellatrix husked against her ear, finishing the statement with a bite and harsh press of her claws, Hermione rocking her hips forward and back in a bid to gain more friction. Her eyes flicked up to the fence line, Neville and some other man she didn’t recognize standing upon the platform with spears in their hands and eyes anywhere but at her.

Bellatrix moved faster and faster, gathering moisture and moans as Hermione continued her feast. It took some minutes of careful maneuvering, but eventually her hunger was sated at the same time Bellatrix brought her over the edge. She came with a howl that pierced the air and forced the men above her to cover their ears at the harshness of it. Spent, full, and dizzy in her afterglow, Hermione fell forward over the remains of the shredded corpse, her hands pinning Bellatrix’s to her body in an effort to pull her along with her.

“What was all that for,” Hermione growled out. She was suddenly very aware of the eyes that had been on them, but only slightly ashamed of the act.

“I wanted to do it, so I did.” Bellatrix made her point with a nip to Hermione’s ear, smile pressing down into her neck.

“That’s not an actual answer,” she rolled to the side before moving into a sitting position so she could stand and pull Bellatrix to her feet.

“I did it because I’m nervous. Those women, Andromeda and Narcissa, they say…” Bellatrix’s words petered off as she walked beside Hermione, shame and abashedness tinging her words, “They say they’re my sisters. From before I entered the Forest. I arrived years ago with the Black Expedition and when we didn’t return they set out looking for me. Found Ilvermorny instead, and a few months later stumbled on me eating scraps from the corpse pile.” Her hand reached over to grab Hermione’s, squeezing it tightly within her grasp. “Both were Seers, both only saw an emaciated corpse, walking and talking like the woman they say I’d been. In fright and horror, Narcissa ended up blinding herself. She was convinced that I was a demon come back to haunt them for failing to find me. Andromeda’s learned to just avoid gazing at me.”

“That's… horrid.”

“Yes, well… I have no real attachment to them. I don’t remember my life before coming here and they’re not a part of my new one. Besides random flashes of emotion, I don’t know them.”

The two continued arm in arm back to their modest home, Hermione’s thoughts swirling around the newly revealed information. Her heart felt broken as she thought of the sort of Hell that Bellatrix, and her sisters, must have lived through.

When they arrived back in the hut they both curled into one another, still painted red from their excursion to get food. Long black tongues pressed against each others soft skin, dragging slowly across as they groomed and cleaned one another well into the night. Before they fell asleep, Hermione safe in Bellatrix’s warm embrace, she turned to press a kiss to blood tinged lips.

“So when do we leave?”


	5. All Play and No Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey i updated this  
no beta/no edit

The Afflicted duo left their chosen den with little in the way of fanfare or goodbye, certainly there were words but nothing heartfelt passed between them. Nothing real. Andromeda and her sister were there only to ensure that they left on time and in the appropriate direction, there was no sense of obligation towards ensuring they left safely nor were there any  _ real _ feelings left to pass between them all.

She knew it was an oddity, she knew it each and every time they met or fought, or reminisced in the midst of their cups about the woman who had once been a sister; now a monster. 

Their first meeting had been the hardest though. Everything afterwards was just… more of the same.

\---

Bellatrix had been found along the outskirts of the wooden defenses of Ilvermorney, a being laying lengthwise atop a corpse as she fed from pile of never-ending dead beneath her. A constant influx of time-displaced visitors and travelers ensured that never once had their population  _ really _ run low; and heavy winters mixed with the oncoming of seasonal diseases always left them with just about the same population as ever. Still the dead needed tending to, needed to be dropped and pushed away, and so after two months of acclimatizing to their new reality, they’d spotted her.

An emaciated and moving corpse; raven hair stringy and in patches as it streamed off a partial scalp to drape bony shoulders, stomach bloated from decomposition and the meal sliding down its gullet, her skin sloughing off at the fingertips and toes to reveal bleached bone where frostbite had set in before her death. Two eyes both milky white from staring outwards endlessly, her mouth unable to close among half-rotted teeth and a tongue chewed in half.

A rotted corpse; picking at a similarly broken down body.

And  _ speaking. _

Or at least she had  _ thought  _ that the  _ spirit _ had been speaking (for what else could it be but an unburied soul come back to haunt the living?). Garbled words and moans of pleasure were hard to hear from where she had been sitting atop the Guard Post on the wall. Whispers carried upwards along with a buffeting wind, their tones  _ sounding _ like her sister,  _ reminding _ her of her sister and the pledge that had brought her out here in the first place.

Bellatrix.

_ Here. _

And so very, very dead.

That night had concluded with a Seer barging her way into their hut while Narcissa painfully tried to extract what she had seen with a bottle of fermented milk and vehement denial. That method of  _ ‘dealing with it’ _ had resulted in nothing more than a sticky and cloying mess outside the entrance to their hut, and a stern look of disapproval from the Seer. 

The next three days had been a daunting litany of tests, sessions, and veiled questions that sought to prove one way or the other the truth to what they had seen. Stuffed inside of a long building filled with smoke and incense; the elders of the settlement all grilling them one by one with repeating questions and ominous chants. No matter how disbelieving Andromeda had felt she was before she entered, when she left she was speechless and perfectly in tune to what they had revealed.

A silver seal of approval (delivered with ink and charcoaled needles); they were Seers’ both, and now devoted to the Sight. Narcissa was inducted right alongside her, given her tattoos at just the same moment, blonde hair wrapped back tightly and face smudged with ash and freely given blood.

But then they had seen Bellatrix again not even three months later while out on a routine patrol. Unfortunately this encounter was distinctly unlike the last; where before they had seen a corpse (and before that a living and breathing woman), they now saw a  _ Demon.  _ Something that had been chosen and bred by the Darkness that dwelled below to haunt the living; a creature that stood nearly twice her height, had a maw filled with razor sharp teeth, black claws to match, and the twisted and sickly antlers of a dying Elk. Before their eyes that form had shifted backwards as darkness and shadow sloughed off to reveal a corpse standing there, staring at them.

_ Speaking to them, _ in their sister’s voice.

_ Calling to them, _ making a lewd remark about two women alone in the woods.

That was how she knew it was Bellatrix standing there. The damned jokes were just like she had been, this time unfiltered and raw whereas before her humor had always tended to spare them both; familial bonds running stronger than the itch to get a laugh.

That night ended with Narcissa choosing to blind herself with a packet of stolen herbs and tinctures, her  _ ‘Eternal Penance’, _ as she later called it. She claimed that even if it killed her she would remain blind in remembrance of the woman that Bellatrix had been, a lousy excuse if Andromeda had ever heard one. Choosing to look away would have had just the same effect with none of the extra more lasting issues, but Narcissa had always been one for dramatics.

And in this one instance she certainly chose the most dramatic answer. 

Andromeda chose to believe she had done it out of horror and guilt more than anything else, unable to bear witness to what their sister had become, but she let Narcissa do as she pleased. Who was she to talk? Her chosen method of avoidance became the bottle and her Husband, and eventually her duties as a Seer.

But now, many years later, she was watching as her sister left them yet again, only this time she was accompanied by a second Demon.

She found herself close to tears when she realized she could only wish them both the best.

\---

The duo set off without a single glance behind themselves, bodies turned away and sprinting into the thickness of the forest at the same moment that they shifted into their true forms, speed building at a blistering pace. It was an exhilarating run, Hermione only just barely managing to keep up with Bellatrix’s speed, her body flying through the forest with a swiftness she had only dreamed of. They drifted around trees, over brambles, up and around ravines and fallen logs, their trail weaving in and out of frozen detritus and geography.

It was play, just as much as it was work.

On and on they ran until eventually their unnatural bodies flagged with the depletion of reserved energy, their panting breath and aching muscles bidding them to rest just as the Moon reached its zenith for the night. Their hulking forms shifted back as they collapsed atop one another in a drift of snow, angled limbs and soft bodies wrapping around one another without even a sense for the ice and cold beneath them.

A hand wrapped around Hermione’s hair as Bellatrix leaned in, “Good run, Pet?” Her voice was silken yet rough, whispered with force against the languid pulse underneath her skin, her eyes lit up against the backdrop of the moonlight.

“Good run,” Hermione replied, teeth burying themselves into the warmth of Bellatrix’s neck, body gripping tighter as they drifted further into the snowbank.

Bellatrix winced and hissed some tone of pleasure tinged with pain, “We’ve made good time, better than I thought we’d make, but we’ll still need to set off early.” She dipped her head to nip the shell of Hermione’s ear, “You’ll enjoy this Little Pet, I know you will.”

“I hope so…” Her reply, languid and resting, seemed to be as far as Bellatrix was willing to converse. Silence filtered in around them after that, Bellatrix resting quietly, Hermione caught up in words she couldn’t express.

She had gone hunting with Bellatrix multiple times over by this point, had rationalized her actions as a necessary evil, a duty to perform. But hunting a large group? Driving them all off from one another until they were spread apart and hurting, some likely to be destined to their same fate?

It was hard for her to wrap her mind around, to square with the little morals and memories she possessed.

Hermione let her mind starve itself of interaction, her body and heart desiring no more than to continue resting with her partner, and slowly the night wore on.

\---

The rising sun brought with it a spirited hunt, not for humans, but for fresh meat.

Or any meat really, her new state left her more than a little wiggle room when it came to the particulars.

Night had run long, morning fleeting, and while neither of them felt the cold in the same manner as they once had, the ever present chill had still invaded their bodies and stuck them both together in a way that tore flesh and hair when finally they awoke. Pain had been the lesson of that experience; Hermione huddling all alone to one side as her body regrew itself, Bellatrix retreating to the opposite side of the snow with snarls and growls of pain, grimace taut and filled with teeth. They snapped at one another in their displeasure, physically and without need for Human words, until eventually the twinned pang of their hurting stomachs drove their minds to more pressing matters than dominance and pain. 

The smell of life was in the air; a kill to take, something large and bulky that left scent wherever it walked.

Bellatrix was the one to sniff it out first, her head cocked to the side and nostrils up in the air as she scanned through the treeline for the trail, her teeth gnashing in fevered  _ need _ while Hermione slowly moved to join her side. They set off at a sprint, bodies twisting and flowing into their more unnatural form as they hit their stride, heads held high and antlers batting away tree limbs and branches like so many shattered strands of ice.

\---

The source of the smell made itself apparent soon enough; a bear, far larger than any she had ever witnessed thus far, was wandering about the snow and trees with its snout beneath the layer of snow as it looked and searched for a meal of its own. Bellatrix circled it for some moments, Hermione just behind her in mimicry, a howl of ice cracking and breaking when she finally decided to rush the beast. One second, two, and soon enough she was close enough to pounce, her body practically flying through the air as she dove for its neck.

Her leap carried through until her maw was closed around the bears throat and her forelimbs splayed along its snout, body pulling and thrashing until she could wrench herself backwards with the throat following along with her. Blood pounded from the wound, Hermione dashing forward until her skeletal maw had closed around the thrashing animal's spine, pulling and ripping until she too could lap the excess spilling outwards. Her claws tore portions of flesh and fur from bone, muscle opened up while the beast whimpered beneath her in its dying throes.

Their bellies were full for an hour, maybe two, but soon enough they hungered yet again.

\---

The following day found them both finally within scouting distance of the large caravan they had been tasked with disrupting; a band of fifty or so all traipsing through the forest in a line led by oxen and men on horseback. The outskirts of the group were all protected by pods of more riders, their beasts all tough looking steeds built for winter movements, their long manes and shaggy hair protecting them from the ever present bite of chilling winter. The duo scanned the lines as much as they could, observing how the interior continued to cycle in and out to refresh the riders at the front and sides, a set of large wagons directly in the middle with protection all around them. The rest of the group were on small winter-ponies, some others walking silently beside them, all of them moving at a pace meant to keep them healthy and unfettered by fatigue.

Their bodies were draped in colors and designs that tugged against Hermione’s memories in ways that left her bewildered and confused; dark greens mixed in with silver, red tied and woven with yellow, and amid the menagerie sat a tall man on a white horse near the center of the group, his garb magenta colored and wrapped tightly around his body to keep in warmth. She sniffed at the air as they moved in their Human forms, judging distance and health, before heading out towards the opposite side in a bid to find Bellatrix after she had wandered along ahead.

“I counted twenty outriders,” Hermione whispered when she found her, Bellatrix lying deep within a drift of snow. She sank down beside her and wrapped limb for limb, black tongue licking against her chin before she spoke again, “Maybe forty on the interior, more inside the wagons. They switch every hour or so.”

Bellatrix nodded, “I counted the same, a little less on the inside. We’ll go with your numbers just to be safe.”

Silence enveloped them before Hermione grew impatient, “So what do we do now?”

“Now we call in a storm.” Bellatrix nodded sagely before pulling Hermione down into her lap, black claws raking down her sides in a bloody display more reminiscent of their lovemaking than mere cuddling, “Get ready, listen to my voice, and learn.”

Bellatrix placed sharp claws against the slit between Hermione’s legs, fingers swirling with ministration as she turned her head to the sky. Her eyes burned black, sharp mouth opened-

It started off low, so soft and languid that her mind focused more on the hand between her thighs than the beating lungs at her back. Seconds blurred onwards until the wind whipped up around her, black tresses mixing with her honey brown until a full frenzy was blowing in behind them. Bellatrix’s voice rose and rose, ponies far in front of them startling and shifting in fright, Hermione’s eyes wide as the wind itself became Bellatrix’s voice.

Clouds formed high up above them, the sun blotted out beneath gray and wind, snow starting as soft flakes before soon enough there was a downpour of white, the animals within the caravan more restless than before.

Bellatrix stopped, leaning forward to press eager fingers inside of Hermione, teeth latching onto the curve of her neck, free hand snaking about to pinch and pull at the taut buds atop her chest. Hermione leaned into her actions, words spilling from her lips between pants and sharply building moans, “N-now what?”

“Now we wait,” Bellatrix purred against her ear, “And tonight we hunt.”


End file.
